


Maraas

by petercapaldiscoiffure



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Qunari Bull, Trespasser Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 00:54:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4808729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petercapaldiscoiffure/pseuds/petercapaldiscoiffure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn't weep and he doesn't die. Not quite yet, anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maraas

**Author's Note:**

> My game may have ended with Tal-Vashoth Bull and my Inquisitor living happily ever after, but his alternate Qunari end really stuck with me. No happy endings in sight here.

**H** e doesn't die.

The reports will say otherwise, that the Inquisitor stopped his heart cold with her magic. The farces and puppet shows will say he bled that rotten heart out onto the cold stone floor while the Inquisitor, fool that she was, wept over him, blinded to the very end.

But she didn't weep herself into a stupor, not then anyway, and he didn't die. 

Not then, anyway.

He does bleed onto the stone floor, that's true, and the smell of copper and bile fills his nostrils while his heart thunders and slows and rushes again. Poison, he thinks. Sera's. But it's the wrong sort for a man like him, who's tougher than most and Qunari on top of it. Slows you down and not much else, and it's keeping his blood slow like a lazy summer river, not the gush it'd otherwise be.

He's perfectly still now, and a small part of him is tracing the path of his escape, to warn the Viddasala, or his fellow agents back in Orlais if he can't navigate all those mirrors. But another part knows it's not long anyhow - his leg is broken, the good one, and the bad one is useless now, between Emeline's ice and Dorian's lightning. And he _is_  bleeding, a lot, slow or not. He's surprised that the thought doesn't bother him - the reality of the situation is cold in his mind, crystalline,  _maraas_. He decides it's welcome. He's failed, again. He's proved himself flawed, again. He'll be sent to a work camp, he thinks dully, somewhere in the back of his mind. He's already been to the re-educators twice, and the last time only two years before. It doesn't look good, this new mark on his record. A knife to the gut - that would be welcome at this point. Quick, sliding back through the stomach, touching the spine, a sharp twist. He'd be meat in a minute or less. There are worse thoughts.

He almost makes a noise, almost alerts the shell-shocked Inquisition to his not-quite dead state  -  _hey, guys, wanna speed things up here?_ But they're busy talking about the Qunari,  _the_  Qunari, him - _that bastard, that wretch, the beast, how could he_. Her voice is shaking. In some way he's sorry for that. He wonders if he's ruined her, even if he couldn't kill her, and that's an honest regret. Death is the better end, to his mind, and he thinks she might agree. He almost hopes she doesn't, all things considered. 

And then they turn to go, leaving him behind. He hears Dorian and Sera, gaits as distinctive as ever, moving forward and down the steps. But then her - quick and delicate, like a water dancer, he'd always thought - stepping not from but _to_  him, bending low. Water hits his cheek, just once - he doesn't breathe. It slides down into his mouth, and it tastes like salt.

He feels a tug on his neck then, and realizes it's the necklace she's after. He can smell the faint tang of orange on her fingers, her favorite. She'd eaten one right before they ran off to save the day. "Might be my last chance," she'd said, and she'd smiled up at him, tired but resigned. He'd told her not to talk like that, snatched a piece from her fingers, and kissed her after when she slapped his arm. She'd laughed into his mouth and she'd tasted like tangerine candies.  

Another pull then and the necklace is cut free, the weight of the tooth gone like so much air. He's certain he's as still as the corpse he's trying to be, though he wonders if he's going to pass out from holding his breath this long, with her so close. There's a pause, too long for comfort and then he hears it, so small and frail he would have to strain to understand if she were any further away.

“Kadan.” Her voice hitches and he can’t tell if she’s stifling a laugh or a sob. 

“ _Katoh_.”

And then she's gone.

His head hurts and his mouth tastes like salt and still he feels nothing. His breath is starting to buzz in his ears. He knows he's dying now. He wonders if she's going to last much longer than him, if he hadn't been doing her a favor, just speeding up the inevitable. Trying to, anyway. He'd laugh at that, rueful but not bitter, never bitter, not good old Iron Bull. But his ribs hurt too much.

He opens his good eye then, some wild thought of finding a healing potion crashing through his brain in between flashes of strange lights and the sensation he's falling, falling, falling. Maybe she'd left him one, that pause was long, longer than it should have been and he was too warm to her icy fingers, just like always, not like a dead man. She was always soft, and she'd loved him. 

_Not everyone's as big an idiot as you, Chief._

And if he didn't know he was dying before, he does now. He hasn't heard that voice in two years, and the kid isn't any more alive now than he was yesterday.

_Tough to be bigger than me any way you look at it, Krem. Qunari, remember?_

What his eye lands on then isn't a healing potion. It's a knife, a dagger she used to harvest her herbs when they were out in the wild. The warm brown of the leather hilt dances with little engraved flowers, roses, daisies, something she said were forget-me-nots. They just looked like little dots to him, but she always knew more than he did about that sort of thing.  

He stares at it for a long minute before realizing he doesn’t have a long minute to spare. He inches his hand towards the dagger, getting as firm a grip as he can, which isn't much. It's a difference between a minute and five, maybe, half of that delirious and half-mad before the dark sets in, but he'll take it if it means he doesn’t have to hear old ghosts. The pain is nothing.

But when he starts to slide the blade into his belly, up under the rib cage, his breathing speeds up and his sight begins to mist, and he hears them one last time.

_Horns up, Chief!_

Then ever so quiet, pleading just under the ringing in his ears -

_Please._

_Katoh._

And when the blood bubbles up over his tongue hot and choking, and his mind starts to go soft and dark, he's sure the flavor that fills his mouth isn't rust red and salt - but summer ripe oranges, warm and bitter and sweet.


End file.
